Graziano Vernizzi

We have recently proposed a dynamical mechanism that may realize a flat four-dimensional space-time as a brane in type IIB superstring theory. A crucial role is played by the phase of the chiral fermion integral associated with the IKKT (Ishibashi-Kawai-Kitazawa-Tsuchiya) matrix theory, which is conjectured to be a nonperturbative definition of type IIB superstring theory. We demonstrate our mechanism by studying a simplified model, in which we find that a lower-dimensional brane indeed appears dynamically. We also comment on some implications of our mechanism on model building of the brane world.

We have recently proposed a dynamical mechanism that may realize a flat four-dimensional space time as a brane in type IIB superstring theory. A crucial role is played by the phase of the chiral fermion integral associated with the IKKT Matrix Theory, which is conjectured to be a nonperturbative definition of type IIB superstring theory. We demonstrate our mechanism by studying a simplified model, in which we find that a lower-dimensional brane indeed appears dynamically. We also comment on some implications of our mechanism on model building of the brane world.

We study the IIB matrix model, which is conjectured to be a nonperturbative definition of superstring theory, by introducing an integer deformation parameter `nu' which couples to the imaginary part of the effective action induced by fermions. The deformed IIB matrix model continues to be well-defined for arbitrary `nu', and it preserves gauge invariance, Lorentz invariance, and the cluster property. We study the model at `nu' = infinity using a saddle-point analysis, and show that ten-dimensional Lorentz invariance is spontaneously broken at least down to an eight-dimensional one. We argue that it is likely that the remaining eight-dimensional Lorentz invariance is further broken, which can be checked by integrating over the saddle-point configurations using standard Monte Carlo simulation.